Music

Q-Tip recently sat down with The Red Bull Music Academy for a lecture discussion about his production career. Chatting about his craftsmanship of beats for acts like Mobb Deep, J Dilla and his very own A Tribe Called Quest, he replayed his works as he recounted the concepts and processes behind each song. One particular song played by The Abstract was a never-before-heard version of Kanye West’s “Mama’s Boyfriend,” a song intended for the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album that fans had only heard through exclusive performances back in 2010.

“I wanted you guys to hear that because with ‘Ye, we try things, we do so many different versions of things. We were in Hawaii, and that not even the real — he did another version with Soulja Boy too — he did so many versions,” he said. “And I remember he and I was like working on it a couple of times and then we had this one that we were really gonna probably do. But it didn’t wind up [on the album] but I wanted you guys to hear one of the things that I did for [that album].”

Sharing that Kanye requested a Mobb Deep-like vibe for that particular version of the song, Q-Tip also recanted how the sample came about.

“We was talking about this Billy Joel thing, ‘Movin’ Out,’ and he was like ‘ I just wanna use that, ‘cause I remember I wanted that nigga to move out. I wanna use that.’”

Watch the lecture in its entirety here. “Mama’s Boyfriend” can be heard at the 1:38:00 mark.